Court hearing for suspect in Noblesville West Middle School shooting postponed

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Noblesville West Middle School

Court hearing for suspect in Noblesville West Middle School shooting postponed

Noblesville West Middle School

NOBLESVILLE, Ind.– A fact-finding hearing for the 13-year-old suspect in the shooting of a student and teacher at Noblesville West Middle School has been postponed, court officials confirmed Friday.

The two-day hearing originally scheduled for June 25-26 would essentially serve as the boy’s trial. Defense attorney Ben Jaffe previously told FOX59 he would be seeking a delay in the hearing.

The motion for a continuance states, “the discovery in this matter is voluminous, and will require additional time to evaluate.”

While court officials did not have a new date for the hearing, the document states the hearing will be continued for at least sixty days.

The suspect’s initial hearing on June 11 lasted only about 15 minutes. The suspect showed little to no emotion as his two parents stood next to him in court. Science teacher Jason Seaman, who’s credited with stopping the shooting and was shot three times, was among those inside the courtroom. A classmate of Ella Whistler, the other person injured in the May 25 shooting, also attended the hearing.

He can’t be charged as an adult because, under current state law, a child 13 years of age can only be waived to adult court if the attempt to murder an individual results in death. FOX59 is not identifying him for this reason.

Prosecutors say the suspect was in possession of a .22 caliber gun, a .45 caliber gun and a knife at the time of the attack.

Should the case end in a plea agreement that could conceivably send the boy to a state juvenile facility for the remainder of his teenage years, it is possible full details of the child’s alleged motivation and background and his acquisition of the firearms may never been known unless the victims were to file civil lawsuits against the school district or the suspect’s family and seek further information through the discovery process.